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Greece before Emperor Constantine (49 - 325) - Byzantine Empire (325 - 1453) - Greece under Turkish occupation (1453 - 1821) - Greek revolt (1821 - 32) - National period of Greek history (1832 - 2000)

Greece before Emperor Constantine (49 - 325 AD)

By the time of Christ's Resurrection, Greece had already been part of the Roman Empire for two hundred years. Rome absorbed the legacy of its past, that is, the remnants of the classical period. What we call modern Greece became a crossroads connecting Asia Minor, conquered by Rome, its European colonies and Rome itself. All roads did not just lead to Rome. These were well-protected roads for privileged categories of citizens, such as St. Paul; he traveled through Asia Minor, Macedonia (modern Greece), Rome, and even reached Europe, preaching the Gospel of Christ.

Greek Christianity arose mainly due to the missionary work of St. Pavel. After his conversion, on the way to Damascus, the Apostle traveled throughout Asia Minor from Antioch to Cyprus and north to the western coast of what is now Turkey, spreading the gospel message. While he was in ancient Troas, he had a dream in which God commanded him to go to Macedonia. From 49 to 52 St. Paul preached Christianity among the pagans of Macedonia. He founded small church communities in Greece - in Neapolis (Kavala), Philippi, Berea (Veria), Thessaloniki, Athens and Corinth. These were the first steps towards converting all of Greece to Christianity. 1

Among the people who spoke Greek, other apostles and disciples of the Lord worked, including St. Jason and St. Sosipater of the Seventy, in the year 37 they brought the light of the Gospel to Corfu; St. John the Evangelist and St. Procopius (they preached in Patmos and Ephesus); St. Barnabas and St. Mark (together with St. Paul), who converted the population of Cyprus; St. Andrew - he preached and was crucified in Patras, and St. Luke, who traveled a lot with the Apostle Paul and subsequently rested near present-day Thebes.

For another three hundred years after the Resurrection of Christ, the Church struggled to survive in the conditions of persecution that periodically arose on the territory of the Roman Empire. In some cases, persecutions (especially those carried out by the emperors Domitian, Licinius, Hadrian, Diocletian and Maximian) led to widespread destruction of Christian communities. Sometimes there were persecutions on a local scale. And although periods of persecution were usually followed by periods of calm, the threat of persecution was always present. We know many of the martyrs of those times by name. Among those whose relics now rest in Greece are: smuch. Hierotheus, smuch. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Jason and St. Sosipater, St. Eleutherius and St. Anthia, St. Polycarp, mc. Paraskeva of Rome, St. vmuch. Charalampius, St. Christopher, smuch. Cyprian and MC. Justina, muchch. Timothy and Mavra, virgin martyr Anisia of Thessaloniki, martyr. Panteleimon, VMC. Varvara, Rev. Parthenius, Bishop of Lampsaki, martyr. Dimitri, military commander. Catherine of Alexandria, martyr. Theodore Tyrone and martyr. Theodore Stratelates, smuch. Blasius, Bishop of Sebastia.

Byzantine Empire (325 - 1453)

The beginning of the Byzantine Empire period is associated with the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great (306 - 337). In 312, Constantine, driving to the battlefield near a place called Saxa Rubra, eight miles northeast of Rome, saw a glowing cross in the sky and the words : Sim win. Victory in that battle brought him the title of sole ruler of the Roman Empire, a victory that he owed to the intercession of the Christian God. The following year, he and his co-ruler Licinius issued the Edict of Tolerance, thus protecting Christians from persecution, and later he himself converted to Christianity.

Constantine moved the capital of the Empire from Rome to one of the cities of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). This decision was dictated not only by political and economic considerations; The Christian faith, which grew more and more in his heart, prompted the Emperor to break with Roman paganism. In 330, at the ceremony of naming the new capital Constantinople, the Emperor declared that pagan sacrifices would never be performed in this city. Less than half a century later, Emperor Theodosius I declared Christianity the state religion. Constantinople became the most beautiful pearl in the diadem of the Greek Empire, playing the role of a spiritual and national center. Despite the fact that after a thousand years Byzantium ceased its political existence, in the minds of Orthodox Greeks this city to this day remains a kind of geographical axis around which their spiritual life revolves. 2

So, the persecution ended, and Christianity began to spread rapidly. Temples were built, church tradition and doctrines that came from time immemorial were defined and formalized. As one would expect, having become the state religion, Christianity attracted the attention of ambitious people who followed fashion in everything and were indifferent to faith itself. As an alternative to secular life, monasticism appeared in cities and began to quickly gain strength. In the fourth century, ascetic hermits appeared in Egypt, and then very soon male and female monastic communities arose in all corners of the Roman Empire. The first monks in Egypt were St. Anthony the Great - founder of monasticism († 356), Venerable. Pachomius the Great († 348) and Rev. Macarius the Great († c. 390). Among those who brought the monastic rule to the West and organized cenobitic monasteries, one of the first were Saints. Basil the Great († 379) and his sister Rev. Macrina († 380). Monasticism served as a counterbalance to the ever-increasing formalization of church life, a living reminder that the Kingdom of God is not of this world. Even today, people who become acquainted with Orthodoxy are often attracted by both ancient monastic spiritual literature and the testimony of modern monks.

During the reign of Constantine, the period of the Ecumenical Councils began (325-787); the first six defined the external, organizational structure of the Church and the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, in particular those relating to the nature and incarnation of Christ and the theology of the Holy Trinity. At the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the veneration of icons, which had been prohibited for a whole century during the period of iconoclasm, was restored. This period marks the heyday of patristic theology. Written works of St. Athanasius the Great, the Cappadocian fathers of the fourth century - Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as St. John Chrysostom, writing at the beginning of the fifth century, contributed to the establishment of church dogmas and the understanding of the Holy Scriptures. To this day, their works are considered the basis of the Orthodox tradition.

During an era of stability that lasted several centuries, magnificent temples and monasteries were built throughout the Byzantine Empire. Amazing examples of Byzantine architecture have survived to this day - for example, in Nea Moni on the island of Chios, in Osiou Loukas (near Thebes), Panagia Ateniotissa in Daphni. The largest temple in all of Christendom, the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, was also built in this early period, and despite the fact that it has been used as a mosque and museum since the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christians treat it with reverence, understanding its importance in the history of Orthodoxy. Thousands of righteous people worked for the salvation of their souls during the era of the thousand-year Byzantine rule, and the grace of the Holy Spirit that rested on them filled this land.

Byzantine Christians strove for integrity and harmony in the relationship between Church and state. The Byzantine Emperor was anointed to the Kingdom as an autocratic and sole ruler. He was not just the head of government. He could not share power with anyone, since he himself had to bear full responsibility. The Byzantines believed that he would eventually appear before God and answer for the spiritual and physical well-being of the Empire. According to the teachings of St. John Chrysostom, the Emperor had an almost mystical duty to resist evil, visible and invisible. On him alone fell the burden of spiritual responsibility as the “Restrainer, the one who does not allow the “mystery of iniquity, which is already at work,” to be fulfilled.” However, the autocratic power of the Emperor did not acquire the status of church dogma. The emperor had the right (and duty) to defend the purity of the faith, speaking at church councils, but the decisive voice in matters of the Church and faith remained with the bishops. Conversely, church hierarchs were morally obliged to protest against government policies if they ran counter to the principles of Christian morality or the interests of the Church, but the final decision remained with the Emperor.

Yet human nature often prevailed. Emperors more than once convened councils, inviting mainly bishops from among their supporters. In this way they tried to consolidate their dogmatically preferred views. Nevertheless, if such councils officially proclaimed a heresy, almost always ten to twenty years later this heresy was refuted in one way or another. And although the Emperors approved the appointment of new Patriarchs (and often appointed them themselves), changed the boundaries of church dioceses in their own interests and established laws relating to church organization, they could never independently proclaim dogmas. On the other hand, the Patriarch often helped (or deliberately did not help) a certain candidate for the Throne to sit on the throne and provided him and his policies with the support of the Christian population. But when this unity of church and imperial power began to serve personal ambitions or was used in support of heretical teachings, when the government deviated from the righteous path, a voice of denunciation always sounded, coming, among other things, from such lamps as the saints. Athanasius the Great, Saint. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory the Theologian and saint. Cyril of Alexandria. The saying “the voice of the people is the voice of God” has been confirmed more than once. Shortly before the end of the Empire, two Byzantine Emperors, desperate for a political union with the Catholic West, invited carefully selected bishops to the councils of Lyon (1274) and Ferrara/Florence (1430), who were instructed to vote for reunification with Rome. In both cases, reunification with Rome was officially proclaimed, but was soon recognized as premature and refuted by the united voices of the laity and clergy of Byzantium.

Harry Magoulias in his book Byzantine Christianity notes: “[Constantine’s conviction that] the perversion of dogma could bring the wrath of God upon the Empire and lead to the destruction of the state... was a problem that the pagan emperors never faced.... The emperor of pagan Rome was also at the same time the main religious official of the state ( pontifex maximus) and a secular ruler, but the question of a pagan church and pagan orthodox dogma never existed. The World of Constantine brought the Emperor's supreme responsibility on earth to another dimension. Constantine clearly understood that the Christian Monarch was also responsible for the well-being of the Christian Church; He inextricably linked the prosperity of the Church with the fate of the state... The main duty of the Byzantine Emperor was to lead his subjects to God and protect the purity of the true faith." 3

Thus, striving to achieve the Kingdom of God, the Empire lived and breathed as a single spiritual organism. The thousand-year history of Byzantium testifies that although fallen human nature, personal interests and ambitions did not allow it to bear full fruit in earthly life, it was still a wonderful attempt. The grace received by the personal spiritual heroism of Christians, the development of Christian social consciousness, great literature and art - this is the heritage we inherited from those times.

Even in the era of its greatest prosperity, Byzantium suffered from external enemies who were not averse to profiting at its expense, and from natural disasters that devastated it. Endless attacks by the Goths and Huns in the 4th - 5th centuries, mass immigration of the Slavs, combined with raids by the Avars in the 6th - 7th centuries, ravaged the continental part of Greece. In 540, a plague epidemic destroyed a third of the Byzantine population; the rise of the Bulgar Khanate with constant raids on the border areas in the 7th century, as well as seven centuries of slave trade and piracy off its shores - all played a role in weakening the “Second Rome”.

Pirates were a terrible scourge for Byzantium for centuries. Later, they plundered only for personal gain, but at the time when the Arabs first appeared in the 7th century, piracy became part of their military strategy to destroy the sovereignty of Byzantium at sea. By the mid-ninth century they had captured Tarsus, Alexandria, Tripoli (Syria) and Crete and from there launched predatory raids on Byzantine coastal cities and islands. They sailed on slow, heavy ships called Kubaria, their attacks were carefully planned and well organized. Many islands of the Aegean Sea, the islands of the Southern Sporades and the islands of the Saronic Gulf remained abandoned and uninhabited for centuries. Pirates used them as transit points to replenish drinking water supplies and to rest the slaves they captured, whom they took for sale in northern Africa. The Bulgarians and Russians took advantage of the catastrophic situation caused by the Arab attack in the 19th century, making large-scale raids on these islands in long boats hollowed out from tree trunks.

In the 10th century, the Byzantine military leader Nikephoros Phocas, who later became Emperor (963 - 969), liberated Crete and thereby saved the inhabitants of the islands and coasts of the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean from the strangling grip of the Arabs. A cloudless period of stability lasted for two whole centuries, but as Byzantium fought for survival after the devastating Fourth Crusade, pirates reigned at sea again. This time it was not just Muslim Arabs, but professional mercenaries from Genoa, Italy, Normandy, Rhodes, Monemvasia and other Byzantine islands, as well as Turks and Greeks; they sold their services to wealthy rulers and states, and were hired by both Byzantium and its enemies. When they weren't working for whoever hired them, they were robbing for themselves. Among the victims of those robberies were saints - St. Theoktist (he escaped on the island of Paros and lived there as a hermit), St. Ephraim the New Martyr, abbess Olympias with her nuns, St. Nicholas, Raphael and Irina, the Tachyarches monastery on the island of Mytilene and many Athonite monks, brutally tortured and killed. Sea robbery continued in the 13th - 15th centuries. It was controlled by the Turks and Venetians who then dominated the sea.

Surprisingly, it is true that spirituality flourished during those seemingly turbulent times. Monasticism spread quickly. Byzantine historians claim that by the 8th century more than half population consisted of people who took monastic vows. 4 There were many canonized saints. During the period of obvious political decline, church art reached unprecedented heights: embroidery, sewing church vestments, metal work, frescoes and icon painting rose to a level that was unthinkable in earlier, calmer times. The Church and the Emperor were intensely involved in charity work, especially in the last centuries of the Empire: they opened and supported homes for orphans and the poor, almshouses, hospices, and hospitals.

The Great Schism, that is, the schism in the Church in 1054, as a result of which the Latin West broke away from the Orthodox East, dealt a severe blow to Christian unity, which has not been restored to this day: Rome still remains separated from the Christian world. In addition, participants in the Fourth Crusade, on the way to the Holy Land in 1204, sacked Constantinople, killed many Orthodox Christians and desecrated their churches. The Venetians and Franks divided vast areas of the Byzantine Empire among themselves (in some places for centuries), and the Greeks did not forget this betrayal. The capital of the Empire was recaptured in 1261 by Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, but fell again to the Turks in 1453. The Byzantine Empire ended its existence.

Greece during the Turkish occupation (1453 - 1821)

During the period of Turkish occupation, Greece found itself in the midst of a centuries-long rivalry between the Turks and the Venetians for control of the Mediterranean. Continental Greece and Asia Minor remained under Turkish rule until the revolt of 1821, and the islands of the Aegean and Ionian Seas were constantly changing from one side to the other.

The Turkish desire for expansion was partly explained by the Islamic tradition of holy war - jihad. Beginning in the 7th century, Muslim tribes swept throughout the Middle East, exterminating and subjugating local Christian, Jewish, and Persian populations through physical extermination, forced conversion to Islam, or merciless social and economic pressure. They called Christians and Jews “the people of the Book” (the Koran refers to them as people of the same spiritual origin as Muslims) and generally treated them less ruthlessly than the pagans. If Christians and Jews did not offer armed resistance to the invaders (punishable by mass executions, robbery and slavery), they received dhimmitude- “protected” social status. The need to pay soldiers and support the Sultan and his entire court by robbing the local population forced the occupiers to constantly expand the borders of the occupied territories. And since only Muslims were allowed to fight in the ranks of the invaders in order to expand territories, the conquered peoples were used as agricultural workers, taxpayers and suppliers of skilled labor capable of creating objects of art to increase the level of civilization of the Islamic state.

Muslim tradition dhimmitude prescribed the refusal of forced conversion of the “protected” people; he was allowed to practice his faith without interference as long as he submitted peacefully to Muslim authority. 5 However, it was forced into a subordinate, humiliated position; non-Muslim residents were often called raya, that is, "cattle", labor force suitable for exploitation. Although the Turkish yoke was not as cruel as the rule of the Muslim Arabs in the Middle East before, between Muslims and dhimmi- Christians and Jews - there were significant social differences. Early in their reign, the Turks imposed a series of regulations on the Greeks that reminded them of their inferior status. It was forbidden, for example, to show disrespect for Islam, its scripture and its representatives. The houses of Christians could not be higher than the houses of their Muslim neighbors. Christians were not allowed to wear Muslim clothing; Moreover, sometimes they were required to wear certain clothes and shoes that emphasized their difference. Dhimmi did not have the right to carry weapons or ride horses (although in practice both weapons and horse riding were often permitted in Greece). In court, the word of a Christian could never be more important than the word of a Muslim. A Christian man could not marry a Muslim woman, although a Muslim could marry a Christian woman. Christian churches were forbidden to build and repair without permission, as well as to decorate them: they were not supposed to attract the attention of devout Muslims and attract worshipers in mosques in the neighborhood. Bell ringing was either prohibited or strictly controlled. Missionary work was associated with great problems, since the conversion of a Muslim was considered a serious crime.

Non-Muslims, in principle, could not serve in the army of the Sultan. This can hardly be considered an infringement of rights, although Christians had to pay a poll tax, called Kharaj. In addition, an army consisting only of Muslims was an ideal, but in practice everything looked completely different. Christians from the Balkans and other European countries served the sultans not only as simple mercenaries, but even as officers and advisers who trained Turkish troops in European methods of warfare.

In the first two centuries after the conquest, there was a despotic practice hated by the people, called devshirme(“tax on children”): every four years, a detachment of representatives of the Sultan traveled around Muslim-controlled territories and selected the strongest and most capable Christian boys. They were taken to Constantinople, forcibly converted to Islam, and after harsh training they became managers or served in the Sultan's elite forces, made up entirely of conscripts. devshirme called Janissaries. They were doing something inappropriate for Christians - they were suppressing uprisings dhimmi and conquered new Christian lands for Muslims. The Janissaries terrified the local population. In some places, boys were taken only from the families of aristocrats or priests. After training, many of them served as managers and reached high positions throughout the empire. Over the centuries, most grand viziers (prime ministers) and other high-ranking officials left the ranks devshirme, as did the great Muslim architects, artists and craftsmen. In the middle of the 17th century, the recruitment of Christian children into Janissary units was stopped, since many Muslims sought to join these troops and receive the lifelong salary due to the Janissaries.

Despite Muslim restrictions, there was a thriving merchant class of Greek Christians, centered in Constantinople. Some of these Christians accumulated enormous wealth and maintained a stable economic and cultural community under Turkish rule. The labor of Christian artisans, artists and architects was valuable, and Christians also performed an important advisory function in the Muslim government. Many of the sultans relied on their skill to conduct affairs; international commercial enterprises led by the Christians of Constantinople brought large trade and tax profits to the Turkish treasury.

And yet, there were material and social advantages on the side of the invaders, and it is not surprising that the weakest Orthodox Christians, especially those who, due to a certain class affiliation or lack of education, could not achieve prosperity and relative independence (existed in such places as, for example, Christian Phanar district in Constantinople), often converted to Islam. This step was irreversible. Apostasy from Islam was punishable by death, and so many “new martyrs” emerged: those who were mistaken for Muslim converts and those who publicly repented of their renunciation of Orthodoxy. The strictness of compliance with Muslim requirements depended on the will of the local Turkish ruler, and the range of unofficial privileges for Orthodox Christians varied from region to region.

The Turks captured vast territories in a relatively short period of time, and they had neither the strength nor the ability to manage such a large and diverse population as the peoples of Greece and Asia Minor. They found a way out - they decided to divide the country along religious lines into millets. The ruling millet was, of course, Muslim. The next most important was the Orthodox Christian millet, followed by the Armenian, Jewish, Roman Catholic, and in the 19th century even the Protestant.

When Mehmed (Mohammed) II captured Constantinople in 1453, he installed the respected lay theologian George Scholarios on the patriarchal throne under the name Gennady II. The Sultan himself conferred this title on Scholarios during a magnificent ceremony. Scholarios (and subsequently all the Patriarchs) swore allegiance to the Sultan and the Empire. In return, the Sultan gave the patriarch civil and spiritual authority over the entire Orthodox Christian millet. Ironically, during Turkish rule, Church and state were in an even closer union than during the Byzantine period. The Church, in a sense, became the state, and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople became its head. The Patriarch's duty to the Sultan was to control the collection of taxes. In addition, he had to observe the manifestation of any political disloyalty towards the Turkish authorities and quickly suppress it. Otherwise, he ruled alone, being completely dependent on the Sultan. Disputes between Christians were resolved by church courts. Everything else: education, inheritance laws, public organizations and religious activities were left to the millet. 6 Usually the Turks interfered little with the activities of local courts, since Greek Christians literally had self-government. Bye dhimmi they paid their taxes regularly and peacefully submitted to the Islamic authorities, no one bothered them.

The millet system had its advantages and disadvantages. Under her, Orthodox Greeks constituted a separate ethnic unit; it contributed to the preservation of Orthodoxy in conditions of social pressure from Muslims. By serving the liturgy in Greek and making some efforts in the field of education, the Church helped the Greeks to survive as a people, although in most of Asia Minor and in some places in continental Greece Turkish became the language of communication.

Unfortunately, this system led to Orthodoxy in Greece being too closely intertwined with the national idea, and the perception of the universal essence of the Church was clouded. What is even sadder is that the corruption and bribery that flourished in the Turkish court also infiltrated the Church. Only those who had rich patrons behind them could achieve high positions, since the sultans demanded a substantial payment from each new bishop and patriarch for power in the Church. Among those who managed to ascend to the patriarchal throne, there were, of course, sincere and pious people, but in general the atmosphere of those times contributed to the manifestation of less noble qualities. The patriarchs remained on the throne for several years at most, until a richer contender offered his terms to the Sultan (whose treasury was always in need of replenishment), after which the former patriarch was removed from the throne and replaced with a new one. The frequent change of patriarchs was clearly in the interests of the Sultan, since it not only generated income, but also forced the new protege to take care of maintaining good relations with the Sultan. At the same time, as Turkish troops advanced deeper into the Balkan lands, the possessions of the Ecumenical Patriarch expanded. The Turks conquered Christian countries, and the autonomous local Churches of Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania forcibly became part of the Greek Patriarchate. At the height of Turkish influence, the millet, which included most Greeks, included Orthodox Romanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Albanians, Vlachians and a significant part of the Arab population.

The decline of the Turkish yoke began already in the 17th century. The absence of an established form of transfer of power from one sultan to another increasingly led to fratricide in the ruler's family. Those heirs who remained alive often found themselves captives in harems, where they received a superficial education and an extremely poor understanding of everything that happened outside the walls of the harem. When they finally sat on the throne, they sometimes turned out to be mere puppets; often the eldest wife, the chief vizier, influential court eunuchs and janissaries fought among themselves for real power. The second factor that weakened the power of the Turks was a series of military defeats, after which Turkish military expansion in Europe came to naught. The possibility of plundering the local population to support Muslim troops was reduced, and officers began to receive compensation in the form of large plots of property. They became a landowning class, in whose hands now lay most of the fertile lands that had previously belonged to the Greeks. But although the Greeks had less agricultural land, taxes increased, since the income from robbery was no longer enough for the Turks, and the burden of maintaining the Turkish empire was gradually shifted more and more onto the shoulders of the “dhimmi”. The third reason for the decline of the Turkish Empire was the growing inability of the sultans to control the conquered territories. The Balkan peoples began to regain de facto autonomy, and Turkish representatives such as Ali Pasha in northern Greece existed as independent rulers within the empire. In the wild, unsettled regions of the Peloponnese, power in rural areas began to shift to local leaders. Laziness and corruption that reigned in the government completed the job.

Greek revolt (1821 - 1832)

Traditionally, the beginning of the Greek uprising is considered to be the day when Archbishop Germanos raised the flag of independence in the monastery of Ayia Lavra on the Peloponnese peninsula. This flag was undoubtedly a powerful symbol - the icon of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary embroidered on the temple curtain. He was so significantly and deeply imprinted in the consciousness of those who fought under him that during all the years of the uprising the Turks offered a large reward for this “dirty rag”. A few weeks before the flag was raised, preparations for the uprising began. The rebels who flocked to northern Greece were joined by Athonite monks, and under the leadership of local leaders the Central and Southern Peloponnese rebelled.

There were several reasons for this sudden transition to open rebellion after long centuries of occupation. One of them is the belief that Russia, as the Orthodox “Third Rome,” is ready to rise to defend the emerging national independence of the Greeks. The second reason was that many stubborn and restless Greek leaders of the Peloponnese were ordered by the Sultan to appear in Tripolitsa, where, in their opinion, the Sultan's representative should have them tried and executed as "super-powerful figures." The third factor was the activities of the rebel group "Eteria Filike" ("Society of Friends"), which consisted mainly of intellectuals of Greek origin. They lived abroad and for a whole decade cherished plans for the liberation of their homeland.

The Turkish military machine was unable to suppress the widespread uprising. By the end of the summer of 1821, forty thousand Turks - inhabitants of the Peloponnese - were driven from the lands where many of them had lived for generations. In some places, Greek rebels carried out massacres of the Turkish population. Sultan Mahmud II summoned his Egyptian vassal, the Albanian Mehemet Ali, the ruler of Egypt, to him, promising him and his son Ibrahim power over the Peloponnese and Cyprus if they managed to subjugate the Peloponnese. Ibrahim's troops were well trained and mercilessly cruel. By 1822 they already controlled most of the Peloponnese. For several years they retained their advantage, but in 1827 their routes of communication and delivery of everything they needed were cut off, after which the combined forces of England, France and Russia destroyed the Turkish fleet during the capture of Navarino Bay.

The rebels' guerrilla tactics, fighting against over-ordered, less maneuverable Turkish forces on the rugged, hilly terrain and mountains of central Greece, were generally successful. But when it became known about the cruelty of the Greeks towards the Turks in the Peloponnese, hundreds of prominent Greeks - Church leaders, shop owners, merchants, and artisans - were publicly executed in Constantinople, Smyrna and Adrianople. Moreover, as an act of retaliation for violence in the Peloponnese, the Turks razed the Anatolian city of Kydonis, slaughtering its entire population of forty thousand. One of the most horrific scenes of Turkish retribution occurred during the uprising on the island of Chios in 1822. The Turks dealt with 25,000 Greek inhabitants of this island; another 100,000 fled to the continent, and the rest - almost all - were captured and sold into slavery. In total, of the 140,000 population of Chios, only 1,800 people remained.

The Athonite monks also suffered seriously. Seeking revenge for the uprising of monks who sympathized with the rebels, the 7 Turks stationed their troops numbering three thousand on the Holy Mountain, and over the next nine years, Turkish troops remained on Athos. A heavy burden fell on the monasteries: they had to not only support the troops, but also supply them with labor from among the monastics. Six thousand monks lived on the Holy Mountain, and most of them were forced to leave there for other monasteries. When the occupation ended in 1830, there were less than a thousand monks left on Mount Athos.

Meanwhile, the struggle of the Greek rebels reached a dead end. Infighting between Greek landowners, brigands whom the people perceived as their leaders and heroes, intellectuals living abroad, and Phanariotes (wealthy Greek merchants and officials in Constantinople) threatened to undo the rebels' efforts, and ultimately the revolt was largely saved by European allies of Greece. In May 1828, power passed to the temporary head of the chaotic provisional government of Greece, John Kapodistrias (1828 - 1831), 8 and in May 1832, the leading European powers established a protectorate over Greece, recognizing it as a sovereign country and installing the young Bavarian as its first king Prince Otto.

National period of Greek history (since 1832)

The country won independence, but things were bad for the Church from the very beginning. Taking advantage of the fact that Mount Athos and the northern part of Greece were still in the hands of the Turks and could not fend for themselves, the provisional government led by John Kapodistrias (1828 - 1831) confiscated all Athos lands within the borders of the new Greek state. This also included agricultural land outside the monastic territories, which was the main source of income. Kapodistrias carried out the same operation with other monasteries on the mainland, setting a precedent for secularization that sadly continued into the twentieth century. The bitter irony is that even the Turks recognized the monasteries’ right to own these lands and did not touch them for four centuries of their reign.

With the accession of Prince Otto to the throne, general discontent began to grow even faster. The “Bavarocracy” more than once rejected the request to give the people a constitution, and the regents of the young king openly did not take Greek customs and traditions into account. The king himself was a Catholic, his government imposed the Western model of education, the legal system and church government, with little regard for local conditions and the peculiarities of the worldview of the Orthodox Greeks. In 1833, legislation was passed that abolished the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople and transferred many church matters to the jurisdiction of civil authorities.

During Otto's reign, a tragic decision was made to close all monasteries with fewer than six monastics. The army led by the Bavarians, which carried out this decision, acted mercilessly. In a short time, more than six hundred Greek monasteries and hermitages were forcibly closed. The monastics often resisted. There were cases of murder of monks and violence against nuns. Lands were taken from monasteries and sold to private individuals, and the monasteries themselves were plundered. Sacred church vessels and manuscripts were selected and sold to Germany and Austria; small icons were sold at the price of the value of their gold and silver frames (the icons themselves were often desecrated). Priceless ancient copies of the Bible and manuscripts were used as wrapping paper - olives, vegetables were wrapped in them, and gunpowder was kept from moisture.

In 1844, a bloodless military coup took place, and the people received a constitution that limited the power of the king. Otto was finally deposed in 1862 and the Dane George I ascended the throne. His dynasty ruled intermittently until 1974, when, in a referendum, the Greeks rejected the monarchy with a majority of 69% of the vote.

In the second half of the 19th century, a political dream was formulated - an ideal political model for the existence of the Greek state, called Megali Idea (Great Idea). Its goal was to create a Hellenic state through diplomatic and military means, which would include continental Greece, the Greek islands, northern Epirus and Thrace, as well as the Christian western coast of Turkey, including Constantinople. The post-war arrangement at the end of the second war in the Balkans in 1912 provided for the return of the cities of Thessaloniki and Thrace to Greece. This was a step towards fulfillment Ideas, however, northern Epirus, with its large Greek-speaking population, eventually fell to Albania.

In 1922, Turkey was invaded by Greece under the pretext of protecting the Greek-speaking minority until negotiations regarding new borders were completed. The invasion ended in tragedy: the Greek army marched east, making a premature attempt to capture Constantinople, and the West, which initially supported this action, retreated halfway under pressure from its oil and economic interests. The Greeks were left without political support and, pursued by the troops of Kemal Attaturk, retreated back to the Greek Orthodox city of Smyrna, where the pursuing Turkish troops slaughtered 150,000 men, women and children and burned the city itself. According to the terms of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, Greece lost any possibility of regaining its former territories. An agreement was reached on a massive population exchange in which all 400,000 Muslims were deported from Greece to Turkey and over 1,300,000 Orthodox Greeks were transported en masse to Greece, increasing the Greek population by one quarter. It should be noted that many Greeks who arrived from Turkey spoke only Turkish, and their ancestors lived in Asia Minor since the time of Christ and even earlier. Although the Patriarch and the local Orthodox community of 100,000 people were allowed to remain in Constantinople and on two islets at the mouth of the Dardanelles, this population exchange ended the 2,500-year Greek presence in Asia Minor.

In 1925, the Greek government, still grappling with the consequences of the population exchange of 1922, took a “lease” of the monastic properties (they had been painstakingly assembled since the confiscation of Kapodistrias) for a period of ten years to house the refugees. In fact, these properties were annexed, since the refugees settled there forever, and the government did not even think about relocating them. 9

The subsequent decades of the national period of Greek history were, unfortunately, no less chaotic, full of shocks and upheavals. The constant interference of European powers in Greek politics and the tragedy of the civil war after the Italian and German occupation of Greece during World War II contributed to the emergence of an artificially induced famine and horrific inflation that destroyed the country's infrastructure. By the end of the civil war, seven percent of the population had been killed, ten percent had become refugees, and thousands more were in exile or in hiding.

After Greece joined the European Economic Community in 1981, the country's economic situation began to improve, but due to constant clashes with neighbors - Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey - and destructive internal political struggles, Greece is one of the most unstable regions of the Mediterranean. Secularization is growing in the country, governments of various socialist persuasions are often elected, and all this brings confusion to the work of social services. An example of this is the once well-established system of monastic shelters. Orthodox nuns worked and supervised these orphanages. Beginning in 1970, they were deliberately systematically closed, and children ended up in temporary state institutions, where there was a constant shortage of staff.

Unfortunately, the late twentieth century saw a decline in church attendance. So in 1963, 31% of Athenians went to church every Sunday, and by 1980 - only 9%; outside the capital, this figure was higher. With rising living standards and imports of both consumer goods and morals from the West, the country seemed to borrow from modern Europe and a high level of secularization. However, at the moment, a joyful change is taking place, especially noticeable in the number of young people visiting churches and coming to work in monasteries. Many monasteries, where only a few elderly inhabitants remained, are undergoing serious renewal, especially on Mount Athos. Previously abandoned communities are being revived, new monasteries and monasteries are being built. In an area equal in size to a third of California, there are now more than a thousand monastic communities.

Despite the fact that Greeks in general have become less likely to go to church, Greece in the twentieth century has produced many amazing saints and elders. Perhaps the most revered of modern Greek saints is St. Nectarius of Aegina, who died in 1920. Tens of thousands of pilgrims come to his monastery on Aegina every year. Among the Greek saints of the twentieth century are such lamps as St. Arsenios of Cappadocia († 1924), priest Nicholas Planas of Athens († 1932), Rev. Silouan of Athos († 1938) and many other righteous Athonite elders, St. Savva the New from the island of Kalymnos († 1948), St. Anfim of Chios († 1960), Fr. Amphilochius Makris from the island of Patmos († 1970) and about. Philotheus Zervakos from Paros Island († 1980).

In the face of ongoing political upheaval and military disasters, despite the seduction of Western sophisticated civilization and the weakening influence of traditional values, Orthodox Christianity continues to live, as it always has been in Greece. Hidden away in small hermitages on the islands, in monasteries perched on the cliffs above the central plains, in white, sun-drenched suburban churches, in the iconic corners of cramped Athenian apartments and in humble chapels hidden in the back streets, monks and nuns, parish priests and lay people with amazing They constantly carry in their hearts the flame of faith lit by St. the Apostle Paul two thousand years ago.

12.1. Greek Orthodox Church before the formation of the independent Greek Kingdom

On the territory of modern Greece, the first Christian sermon was preached in the 40s and 50s. according to R.H. thanks to the missionary travels of the Holy Apostle Paul and his disciples. During his second and third evangelistic journeys, he founded Christian communities in a number of cities in Macedonia and Achaia (Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth), writing his letters to them (one to the Philippians and two letters each to the inhabitants of Corinth and Thessalonica). Apollos, a companion of the Apostle Paul, worked in Corinth. The holy Apostle Andrew preached in Achaia, and the Apostle Philip preached in Athens. The Apostle and Evangelist Luke also preached on the territory of Greece, and on the island of Patmos Saint John the Theologian received Divine Revelation. The first bishop of Crete was Titus, a disciple of the Apostle Paul.

No information has been preserved about the exact structure of church communities on the territory of Greece. It is only known that Corinth was the main city of the Roman province of Achaia, as a result of which the bishop of Corinth gradually rose above the other hierarchs of Greece and became a metropolitan.

At the beginning of the 4th century. Emperor Constantine the Great carried out an administrative reform, as a result of which the Roman Empire was divided into 4 prefectures - East, Illyria, Italy, Gaul, which in turn were divided into dioceses, and dioceses into provinces. The territory of Greece became part of the Macedonian diocese (center - Thessaloniki). As a result, the Corinthian See began to lose its importance; the Bishop of Thessaloniki came to the fore, who began to seek recognition of his authority by other bishops of his diocese (due to the political significance of Thessaloniki).

In 415, Pope Innocent I appointed the Bishop of Thessalonica as his vicar over all of Eastern Illyria. In 421, the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, Theodosius II, conquered Eastern Illyria from the pope and subjugated it to the Patriarch of Constantinople, but soon, at the insistence of the emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Honorius, it again became subordinate to the pope.

At the beginning of the 8th century. The iconoclastic movement began in Byzantium. Pope Gregory III spoke out in defense of icon veneration. Then, in 732, the Byzantine emperor Leo the Isaurian again conquered Eastern Illyria from the pope and subjugated it to Constantinople, and the pope’s vicariate of Thessalonica was abolished.

In 879 – 880 Patriarch Photius of Constantinople sanctioned the inclusion of the Greek Orthodox Church in the jurisdiction of Constantinople. As a result, from 880 to 1821, Greece was part of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, sharing the same fate with it and with the Byzantine Empire as a whole, having experienced the invasion of the Crusaders and Seljuk Turks. After the fall of Byzantium (1453), the Greek Orthodox Church, like the Patriarchate of Constantinople, found itself under Ottoman rule.

12.2. Greek Orthodox Church in XIX century

Throughout the entire Turkish period, starting from the second half of the 15th century, national liberation sentiments matured in the Greek environment, since the oppression of the Turks was very heavy. The ideas of political liberation were closely intertwined with the ideas of church independence. During the XV - XVI centuries. these ideas were not destined to come true. Only in the 18th – 19th centuries, when the Ottoman Empire was gripped by a systemic crisis (of administration, land tenure, tax system, etc.), did some Balkan peoples manage to put their ideas into practice.

At the beginning of the 19th century. In Paris, among the Greek intelligentsia, the literary society "Heteria" ("Friends of the Muses") arose. Soon it acquired a political overtones, setting the main goal of the liberation of Hellas. Other Greeks living in Europe also joined this society. In particular, it included Count John Kapodistrias, who was in Russian service, and Prince Alexander Ypsilanti.

In 1821, Alexander Ypsilanti led an armed detachment of Greeks that invaded the Danube principalities and raised an uprising against the Turks there. But it ended in failure.

The culmination of the rebel movement and liberation sentiments was the uprising of the Greeks in Morea, which began in 1821. At first, the European powers did not interfere, considering it an internal matter for Turkey. The revolt continued for several years, during which Greece bled to death. The advantage was on the side of the Ottomans. Then, at the insistence of Russia, England and France joined the fight against the Turks on the side of the Greeks, demanding that the Sultan stop the inhumane massacre of the Greeks. For example, in 1822, the Turks killed only on the island of Chios approx. 20 thousand Greeks. In 1827, the Russian-Turkish war began, which ended with the victory of Russia and the signing of the Peace of Adrianople, among the conditions of which was Turkey’s recognition of the independence of Greece. Thus, Greece became the first state in the Balkans to gain independence from the Porte.

During the years of the bloody Morean uprising, the Greek Orthodox Church played an invaluable role. First of all, the Church, of course, came out in defense of the enslaved Greek people and in a terrible time was able to unite national consciousness. The interests of the Greek Church were the interests of the people and vice versa.

Throughout the 1820s. Meetings of four national assemblies of Greeks took place (in 1821, 1823, 1827 and 1829), at which issues of further church governance of the Hellenic dioceses were discussed. For, rebelling against Turkish rule, the Greek dioceses had not yet rejected their canonical dependence on Constantinople. In 1829, at the Fourth National Assembly of the Greeks, the Ministry of Church Affairs and Public Education (the highest church authority with the rights of state power) was established, headed by the civil official Nikolai Chrysogelos. But still, as a result of the endless wars of the 1820s. relations between the Greek Church and Constantinople actually broke off.

Since Greece gained independence, it had its own state power, headed by the President of the Hellenic Republic, Count Kapodistrias. In this regard, in 1830, Patriarch Constantius I of Constantinople addressed him with a letter, expressing the hope that the Hellenic dioceses would again enter into communication with Constantinople.

In 1833, at the insistence of England, the king erected by the Western powers, the 17-year-old Bavarian prince Friedrich Otto, arrived in Hellas, who, having reached adulthood, became the ruler of Greece. One of the main concerns of the new government was the resolution of the church issue. With the permission of Frederick Otto, a commission was formed of representatives of the clergy (Bishops Paisios of Elea and Ignatius of Ardameria and Hieromonk Theoclitus Pharmacides) and laity, chaired by the Minister of Church Affairs Spyridon Trikoupis. Soon the commission developed a project for the structure of the Greek Orthodox Church, which was based on the idea of ​​autocephaly of the Church.

As a result, on July 23, 1833, the government issued a special declaration, according to which the Greek Orthodox Church was declared autocephalous.

The Declaration of 1833 also proclaimed the basic principles of the structure of the Greek Church. The highest ecclesiastical authority is under the control of the king in the hands of the Holy Synod of the Kingdom of Greece. The Synod consists of 5 bishop members. The government has the right to introduce additional assessors to the Synod. The Synod can make a final decision only with the participation of the Crown Prosecutor. In all internal affairs of the Church, the Synod acts independently of secular authorities. However, all cases are resolved with the approval of the government. During the service, it was prescribed to first commemorate the king, and then the Synod.

Thus, in fact, by the declaration of 1833, all ruling power in the Greek Orthodox Church was granted to the king. was entirely dependent on the state.

Metropolitan Kirill of Corinth was appointed chairman of the newly established Synod in 1833.

The Patriarch of Constantinople, however, like all other Local Orthodox Churches, assessed the declaration of independence of the Greek Church as anti-canonical. There was a break between the Greek Church and the Orthodox plenitude and, above all, with Constantinople for 17 years. Moreover, we must pay due respect to the Greek bishops: during the years of rupture (essentially, schism) not a single episcopal consecration took place in the Greek Church. The clergy themselves were interested in the official recognition of their autocephaly.

Only in 1850 did Patriarch Anthimus of Constantinople convene a Council, at which he approved the independence of the Greek Church. On this occasion, a special Tomos was issued and all Local Orthodox Churches were officially notified. Thus, the date of autocephaly of the Greek Church is considered to be 1850, and not 1833. Contrary to the declaration of 1833, the Council decided that the Greek Synod should consist only of bishops and decide church affairs without worldly interference.

In 1852, a new law was adopted on the structure of the Synod of the Greek Church. Despite the decisions of Constantinople, it inherited the ideas of the declaration of 1833. The new law also constrained the freedom of action of the members of the Synod and made them dependent on civil authorities. Changes occurred only in the composition of the Synod: only bishops of the kingdom could be its members.

In 1852, an administrative reform was carried out - the kingdom was divided into 24 dioceses, one of which (Athens) was elevated to the level of metropolitanate, 9 to the level of archbishoprics, and the rest to the level of bishops. In 1856 the dioceses were divided into parishes.

In the second half of the 19th century. The canonical territory of the Church is expanding. In 1866, the flock of the Ionian Islands, previously under British rule, joined the Greek Orthodox Church. After their annexation to Greece, the question naturally arose about the entry of the population living on them into the jurisdiction of the Greek Church.

After the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 - 1878. Thessaly and part of Epirus (Arta) were annexed to Greece, the dioceses of which also became part of the Greek Church.

During the second half of the 19th century. the number of dioceses changed. In 1900, according to a new law, the Greek kingdom was divided into 32 dioceses, of which 1 metropolitanate was Athens.

12.3. Greek Orthodox Church in XX century

After the end of the First World War, the Greek hierarchs began a movement for liberation from state tutelage.

In 1923, a council of the Greek Orthodox Church was convened, which introduced changes to the structure of the Church. From now on, the Council of Bishops began to govern under the chairmanship of the Archbishop of Athens with the title “His Beatitude” (before that he was Metropolitan), and all diocesan bishops received the title of metropolitans. This order continues to this day.

In 1925, the dictatorship of Theodoros Pangalos was established in Greece. He issued a new church law, where he repeated the main provisions of the law of 1852. A Permanent Synod (7 bishop members) was established, which had the highest administrative church authority. At the Synod, Pangalos appointed a state commissioner who approved synodal resolutions, with the exception of those related to faith and worship. Soon the number of Synod members was increased to 13. This provision was in effect until 1967.

In April 1967, a military coup took place in Greece. In May 1967, the Greek government issued a number of decrees concerning church life. The previous composition of the Synod was dissolved, the number of its members was reduced to 9. The post of government commissioner under the Holy Synod was abolished. From now on only a Greek could be a bishop of the Greek Church. The age limit for metropolitans and Athens Archbishops was set at 80 years. This forced the retirement of 89-year-old Archbishop Chrysostomos II (1962 - 1967). Of course, such gross and unjustified government interference in church affairs caused grief and discontent not only in Greece itself, but also in the rest of the Orthodox world, since the government made the above decisions without taking into account the opinions of the entire episcopate of the Greek Church.

According to the results of the election of a new primate in 1967, Archbishop Jerome of Athens (1967 - 1973), one of the most educated hierarchs of the Greek Church, became the head of the Greek Church. He graduated from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Athens, and also studied in Munich, Berlin, Bonn, and Oxford. In 1950 – 1956 was Secretary General of the Cyprus Liberation Commission. Since 1952, he was a member of the Central Committee of the WCC and proved himself to be an active ecumenical figure. Archbishop Jerome represented the Greek Orthodox Church at various inter-Christian meetings in Western Europe, America, Africa and the Middle East. On May 17, 1967, Archimandrite Jerome was enthroned as Archbishop of Athens.

After his accession to the See of Athens, Jerome proposed a project for the reorganization of the Greek Church, which included a clear establishment of the boundaries of the metropolises. In June 1967, Archbishop Jerome was in Constantinople. During the meeting with Patriarch Athenagoras, there was a conversation about the future of Orthodoxy and relations with Catholicism. Archbishop Jerome emphasized that the Orthodox Churches are moving together along the path of solving modern problems. Patriarch Athenagoras and Archbishop Jerome set a course for joint action regarding ecumenical initiatives.

During his primacy, Archbishop Jerome visited the Constantinople (1967), Romanian (1968), Bulgarian (19690, Alexandria (1971) and Serbian (1972) Orthodox Churches.

On November 25, 1973, another military coup and a new change of government took place. Archbishop Jerome publicly announced his decision to resign on December 9, 1973, which followed on December 19 of the same year.

Hellasskaya faced the question of electing a new primate. On January 11, 1974, the law “On determining the method of electing the Primate of the Church and putting in order some church affairs” was issued, according to which the new composition of the Synod was determined, which included only 32 out of 66 possible metropolitans, and the immediate election of the Primate of Greece was to take place Orthodox Church in the presence of the Minister of Education and Religion. On January 12, 1974, a meeting of the Synod was held in the Petraki Monastery (Athens), at which Archbishop Seraphim, who headed the Greek Orthodox Church until 1998, was elected by a majority vote to the post of head of the Church.

From 1998 to the present, the head of the Greek Church is the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, Christodoulos (in the world - Christos Paraskeviades). He was born in 1939 in Xanthi (Greece). Graduated from the Faculty of Law and Theology of the University of Athens. In 1965, he defended his doctoral dissertation in the field of church law and received the academic degree of professor of theology. In 1974 he was elected Metropolitan of Dimitrias and Almir with a see in Volos. Archbishop Christodoulus is one of the most educated hierarchs of the Greek Orthodox Church. He is fluent in four foreign languages ​​and teaches canon law at the University of Thessaloniki. The Archbishop's scientific works are highly valued in the scientific world.

The principle of subordination of the Greek Orthodox Church, as an institution, to the Greek government, laid down in the 19th century, continues to operate today. This is especially noticeable when the Greek government changes from time to time. The following fact can serve as a clear confirmation. In 1987, the country's parliament adopted a law on church property. The Church in Greece owned large plots of land and real estate. The new law deprived the Greek Church of the right to own property, and transferred the management of metropolitan and parish councils into the hands of local authorities, which grossly violated the independence of the Church. The clergy announced their strong protest. An emergency meeting of the Synod regarded this as direct interference in the affairs of the Church with the aim of depriving it of independence. As a result, in 1988, the ill-fated law was repealed, and the government entered into an agreement on non-interference in its affairs.

The highest administrative bodies of the Greek Orthodox Church are:

1 . The Holy Synod of Hierarchs, consisting of all ruling bishops;

2 . The Permanent Holy Synod, which includes 12 bishops; it sits between sessions of the Holy Synod of the Hierarchy;

3 . General Church Assembly (General Church Assembly), consisting of permanent (bishops and representatives of church organizations) and elected (one layman from each diocese for 3 years) members. It convenes once a year and resolves mainly financial issues.

The highest executive bodies of the Greek Church are:

1 . The Central Church Council, consisting of permanent and elected members and carrying out part of the functions of the General Church Assembly in the period between its meetings;

2 . Synodal Administration, consisting of various committees (Main Secretariat of the Holy Synod; on dogmatic and canonical issues; on church legislation; on external church relations, etc.).

All decisions of church administrative bodies are binding for execution by church authorities from the moment of their publication in the official organ of the Greek Orthodox Church “Ekklisia”.

The Chairman of all administrative and executive bodies of the Greek Church is the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece.

The system of church government also includes the Synodal Courts. The Office of the Holy Synod, various church organizations, including the Theological Boarding School, the Theological Institute of the Clergy, and the Apostolic Diacony. The last organization - Apostolic Diakonia - was created in 1936. Its tasks include the systematic study and dissemination of the Holy Gospel in all areas of public life, intensification of the activities and training of confessors, dissemination and preservation by all possible means of Orthodox consciousness among the Christian flock and publishing activities. The Apostolic Diakonia creates schools of preaching and catechesis, promoting spiritual education.

The hierarchs of the Greek Church are divided into two groups: 1) the hierarchs of the Greek Church (the metropolis in “Old Greece”) and 2) the hierarchs of the Ecumenical Throne (in the so-called “new territories” - “neon horon”). Thus, the Greek Orthodox Church includes, firstly, the Autocephalous Church of Greece and, secondly, the metropolises of the Ecumenical Patriarchate included in it, with the exception of the Cretan Church (which is autonomous in canonical dependence on the Ecumenical Patriarch) and the monasteries of Holy Mount Athos ( are also under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople).

The Greek Orthodox Church carries out extensive educational work and has a wide network of theological educational institutions: 2 Theological faculties (at the universities in Athens and Thessalonica), 8 Theological Seminaries with a six-year course of study, and a school for teachers of the Law of God.

In 1970, by decision of the Holy Synod of the Greek Church, the Institute of Byzantine Musicology was founded, where the sources of Byzantine music and the development of Byzantine musical writing are studied.

It is also important that in Greece it is inseparable from the secondary school, and the study of the Orthodox faith is mandatory for all students.

The Greek Orthodox Church is actively involved in publishing activities. Since 1923, the Holy Synod of the Greek Church has published the journal “Theology”. The official bulletin of the Greek Church is the magazine "Ekklisia" ("Church"), published since 1923, and since 1952 a supplement has been published to it - the magazine "Priest". In addition, the Holy Synod annually publishes the “Calendar of the Greek Church” (since 1954).

The Apostolic Diakonia publishes the magazines “Joyful Home,” intended for reading by Christian families, “Joyful Children,” for children in parochial schools, and “Church Calendar,” which contains daily sermons for the Greek family.

Most metropolises publish their own bulletins and publications.

Monasticism and monasteries. Today, monasticism in Greece is experiencing its heyday. Dozens of new monasteries are opened every year.

Until 1833, there were 3 types of monasteries in Greece:

– stauropegial, subordinate directly to the Patriarch of Constantinople;

– diocesan, dependent on local bishops;

– private (ktitorskie), owned by individuals, and under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Until the 30s. XIX century There were two types of monasteries: cinenical and idiorhythmic. In the early 1830s. The government decreed that only Cenonic monasteries should remain in Greece. Each cenobia had to have at least 30 monks. Entry into monasticism was allowed only after 30 years of age.

As of 1991, in Greece, with the exception of Mount Athos, there were approx. 200 male and 150 female monasteries. Basically, these are small monasteries of 5–10 monks.

The largest monastery in Greece is the Pendeli Monastery (near Athens), founded in 1578. In 1971, the “Inter-Orthodox Athens Center” was opened here, the purpose of which is to strengthen the relations of the Orthodox Churches through a common study of the problems encountered in the world today.

For 1960 – 1990 Greece canonized the new saints of God. For example, in 1960, the relics of the venerable martyrs Raphael, Nicholas and the young woman Irina, who suffered for the faith of Christ in the 15th century, were miraculously found and glorified. on the island of Mytilene. In 1961, Saint Nektarios, Bishop of Pentapolis (d. 1920), was canonized.

The jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church extends to the territory of Greece. The Episcopate of the Greek Church numbers 93 bishops (2000). The number of believers is approx. 9 million people (1996).

The ties between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Russian Church are very strong. Recently, contacts between the two Churches have been actively maintained at all levels, from official visits of delegations of the Churches to pilgrimage trips. Among the most recent official visits, one can mention the visit of Archbishop Christodoulos to Moscow in May 2001.

12.4. Greek "Church of True Orthodox Christians"

This exists in Greece independently of the Greek Orthodox Church, having separated from it in the 1920s.

The reason for its emergence was the introduction in 1924 of the New Julian calendar in the Greek Orthodox Church. Some clergy and laity did not recognize this innovation and formed their own “Orthodox Society.” In 1926 it was renamed the "Greek Religious Society of True Orthodox Christians" with parishes throughout Greece.

In 1935 it completely broke its canonical connection with the Greek Orthodox Church and, therefore, with Ecumenical Orthodoxy. At the head of this society, its own Synod was formed. Currently, this Church is headed by the “Archbishop of Athens” and the Holy Synod, and has many adherents. At the beginning of the 1980s. The “Church of True Orthodox Christians” numbered approx. 200 thousand flock, 5 dioceses, 75 churches, 4 male and 11 female monasteries. In addition to the territory of Greece itself, this Church has several parishes in Cyprus, the USA and Canada.

Chapter 13. Albanian Orthodox Church

13.1. Christianity on the territory of modern Albania until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Accurate historical data about the penetration of the first Christian preaching into the territory of Albania have not been preserved. It is only known that it was established on the shores of the Adriatic Sea thanks to the activities of the disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius - Saints Clement and Naum. At the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th century. the Albanian cities of Devol (modern Korca) and Glavenica (near modern Avlona) were known as Christian centers. In the 10th century Bishop Devola was a disciple of St. Clement - Mark. At the beginning of the 11th century. The Drach Metropolis and several other dioceses on the territory of modern Albania are known.

With the formation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (870), the Albanian dioceses were under its subordination. After the conquest of Bulgaria by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II the Bulgarian Slayer and the liquidation of the independence of the Bulgarian Church, the Albanian dioceses became part of the Ohrid Archdiocese. Together with the subordination of the Ohrid Archdiocese to Constantinople in 1767, the Albanian dioceses automatically fell under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople. In them, as in all Orthodox Churches in the Balkans, a Greek-Phanariot regime was established. The Turks treated the Albanians like other conquered peoples - they forcibly imposed them, established their own rules, and introduced unaffordable taxes that oppressed the people.

In the 19th century A wave of broad national liberation movements began in the Balkans. At this time, in Albania, the ideas of eliminating the Ottoman regime and creating an independent state were also awakening and growing rapidly among the common people. Orthodox Albanians who emigrated to Bulgaria, Romania and the USA played a major role in the spiritual revival of their people, although there were very few of them.

In the XVIII – XIX centuries. Hellenistic tendencies spreading by the Greek clergy were so great that at the end of the 19th century. Calls for the introduction of the native Albanian language in worship and the introduction of local church traditions began to sound more and more insistently.

At the beginning of the 20th century. As a result of Turkey's defeat in the First Balkan War (1912–1913), a new independent state of Albania emerged in the Balkans. This was the end of the Turkish domination here. Albania's sovereignty was confirmed in 1920.

13.2. The struggle of Orthodox Albanians for church independence

After the emergence of an independent state, the idea of ​​distancing itself from Constantinople immediately arose among the Albanian clergy - the creation of an autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church. The movement for autocephaly came from below, from the lower clergy, which during the years of the Phanariot regime was the bearer of the national language and local traditions and was least of all subjected to Hellenization, so hated by the common people.

In 1922, the Great Albanian Orthodox Church-People's Council was held in Berat under the chairmanship of Protopresbyter Vasily Marko. At this Council, the Albanians independently declared autocephaly for their Church. The Council elected the first bishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church, Vissarion (Giovanni), an Albanian by birth, who graduated from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Athens.

Some time later, Bishop Hierotheos of Melitopol arrived from Constantinople to Albania as the special Patriarchal Exarch for the affairs of the newly formed Albanian Church. Arriving in Albania, he approved the act of autocephaly, took the Korca see and thus became the second bishop of the Albanian Church.

Constantinople, of course, objected to autocephaly, putting forward for the Albanians the condition of the autonomy of the Church and the preservation of Greek as their liturgical language. The Albanians did not accept the condition of Constantinople, and then relations with the Ecumenical Throne worsened.

In 1924, another representative arrived from Constantinople to Albania - Bishop Christopher (Kisi) of Sinada, an Albanian by origin, who, like Hierotheus, remained in Albania and occupied the see of Berat. Bishops Hierotheos and Christopher consecrated another bishop for the Albanian Church - Archimandrite Fan (Theophanes) Noli.

In 1922, a totalitarian regime led by Ahmet Zogu was established in Albania. Religiously, the regime was Muslim in nature. This caused protest among the Albanians, who in 1924 raised an armed uprising under the leadership of Bishop Fan (Noli). A. Zogu was forced to flee, and Bishop Fan became the head of the new government (from May to December 1924). In December 1924, A. Zogu, supported by the financial circles of Yugoslavia and Italy, returned, restored his order and in 1928 proclaimed himself “King of the Albanians.” Bishop Fan had to leave Albania.

In the mid-1920s. negotiations with Constantinople are resumed. As a result of negotiations in 1926, Constantinople finally approved the autonomy of the Albanian Orthodox Church. During the debate, a draft charter for the autonomous Albanian Church was drawn up, according to which:

– Albanian consisted of 5 metropolises (Tirana, Korça, Argyrokastr, Berat and Durre);

- in the capital of Albania - Tirana - there will be the residence of the Metropolitan of Tirana, who will simultaneously be both the Archbishop of the Albanian Church and the chairman of the Synod, which will include all metropolitans;

– candidacies for the Tirana, Durre and Argyrokastr metropolitans will have to be appointed by the Ecumenical Patriarch; Metropolitans Hierotheos and Christopher are appointed to the Korcha and Berat departments, respectively;

– Albanian is the liturgical language.

But the local clergy strived with all their might for complete ecclesiastical independence from Constantinople. In 1929, Bishop Vissarion, together with the present Bishop Victor (Serbian Orthodox), without any agreements with Constantinople, contrary to the charter, consecrated three more Albanian bishops. Thus, the Albanian Church received the fullness of its hierarchs. The bishops formed the Synod of the Albanian Church, which elected Bishop Vissarion as its chairman and Archbishop of all Albania. Following this, the Synod again declared the Albanian Orthodox Church autocephalous. Greek bishops - representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch - were expelled from Albania.

Patriarch Basil III of Constantinople had a sharply negative attitude towards the actions of the Albanian clergy. In a telegram to the Albanian king, he indicated that “impious and incorrect ordinations of bishops” had taken place in Tirana, and that the Ecumenical Patriarchate considered them anti-canonical and ineffective.

Constantinople also addressed the Albanian flock with the demand that it avoid church communion with the bishops overthrown by the Patriarchate, whose actions, in the opinion of Constantinople, have no spiritual force.

Constantinople even turned to the League of Nations for help, but it refused to consider the Albanian issue, since it did not deal with internal church issues. It should be noted that none of the Local Orthodox Churches, including the Russian one, supported the illegal autocephaly of the Albanians, considering the Albanian bishops to be selfish and schismatics.

In 1930, the government of A. Zogu issued a decree “On Religious Communities,” according to which all church property was placed at the disposal of local authorities, and not the church communities themselves. Clergymen were deprived of voting rights.

Non-recognition of the autocephaly of the Albanians by the Local Churches, intensified Catholic propaganda and the unfriendly attitude of the Zog government towards Orthodoxy put Albania in a “survival zone”. Archbishop Vissarion declared the Albanian Orthodox Church persecuted.

In 1935, Archbishop Vissarion achieved an audience with A. Zogu. The Albanian king promised to help normalize relations between the Albanian Orthodox Church and Constantinople and improve the position of the Church in the country. In 1936, Archbishop Vissarion submitted a request for retirement.

In April 1937, a delegation of Albanian clergy led by Bishop Christopher of Sinad (who ruled the Metropolitanate of Berat) took upon itself the responsibility of conducting official negotiations with Constantinople on the granting of legal autocephaly to the Albanian Church.

As a result of negotiations, on April 12, 1937, the Ecumenical Patriarch signed the Tomos, which recognized the autocephaly of the Albanian Orthodox Church. From now on, the Albanian Church is headed by the Holy Synod, headed by the chairman - the Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania, who became Bishop Christopher of Synad (he was the head of the Church until 1949). Constantinople informs all other Local Orthodox Churches about the official recognition of the autocephaly of the Albanian Orthodox Church.

13.3. Autocephalous Albanian Church

During World War II, Albania was occupied by Fascist Italy and then by Nazi Germany. Many clergy of the Albanian Church took an active part in the fight against the invaders. One of the brightest representatives of the liberation movement in Albania during the years of occupation was Archimandrite Paisiy (Voditsa). An ardent patriot of his people, who without hesitation stood up for the freedom and independence of Albania, in 1942 he was elected a member of the National Liberation Council of Koleni, and in 1943 - a member of the Anti-Fascist Council and the General National Liberation Council of Albania. In 1948, Archimandrite Paisios was elevated to the rank of Bishop of Korça, and in August 1949 he became the primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church, heading it until 1966.

Immediately after the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Albania, in 1946, a communist regime led by E. Hoxha was established here and the People's Republic of Albania was proclaimed. The government headed for the proclamation of absolute atheism. The Orthodox Church in Albania was on the brink of disaster.

This tendency was especially evident in the years when Archbishop Damian (1966 - 1973) was the primate of the Albanian Church.

In 1967, on the initiative of E. Hoxha, a campaign began to destroy “all religious customs and institutions” - a document “Against Myths and Religious Institutions” was published, according to which all religion was officially banned, and repressions against believers were launched. The actions of the government were characterized by extraordinary fanaticism: for publicly performing the sign of the cross a person could get 10 years in prison, and for keeping icons at home - for 25 years.

Since the second half of the 1960s. no news about the fate of the Albanian Orthodox Church ceased to arrive. Only in October 1971, in the Message of the Second All-American Local Council of the Orthodox Church in America, it was mentioned that all churches in Albania were closed and all church communities were abolished. In 1971, the diocese of the Albanian Orthodox Church in the USA, numbering 13 parishes, at its own request was accepted into the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in America (due to the difficult situation in Albania itself).

Archbishop Damian died in 1973, although most likely he died in prison. Since the early 1970s. nothing was heard about Orthodoxy at all. In the 1970s - 1980s. There is not a single Orthodox bishop left in the country. The government has officially stated that Albania is the first country in the world to completely eliminate all religious practices. The Orthodox Church was forced to go into the catacombs. Religious ceremonies (Catholic and Orthodox) were carried out secretly in apartments, in a narrow family circle.

To give legitimacy to the persecution of believers in Albania, a Constitution was adopted in 1974, which stated that “the state does not recognize any religion and conducts atheistic propaganda in order to convince people of a scientific and material understanding of the world” (Article 36) , “it is prohibited to create any organization of a religious nature” (Article 54).

Only in the second half of the 1980s. after the death of E. Hodge and under the influence of international events, internal changes began to occur in the internal life of the country. Due to the collapse of socialism, it gradually began to come out of hiding.

In 1991 (for the first time since 1967) on Easter approx. 3 thousand Albanians gathered for Easter services in the only functioning Orthodox church in Tirana. In 1992, in the Albanian Church, after an almost twenty-year break, the opportunity arose to elect a new primate. On the initiative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, in 1991 Bishop Anastasios (Yannulatos) of Andrus was sent to Albania to restore the Orthodox hierarchy, who in the same year became Patriarchal Exarch of Albania, and in 1992 he became Archbishop of Albania. He heads the Albanian Orthodox Church to this day. Bishops were consecrated to vacant sees, the Holy Synod was re-formed and all church structures were restored. Throughout the 1990s. Church life had to begin, essentially, from scratch. Over the last decade, approx. 70 churches, more than 170 reconstructed, including the cathedral in Tirana, the Theological Academy was opened in Durres.

The jurisdiction of the Albanian Church extends to the territory of Albania and to Orthodox Albanians living in the United States.

The full title of the Primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church is “His Beatitude Archbishop of Tirana and all Albania, Metropolitan of Tirano-Durras-Elvasan.” The episcopate of the Albanian Church has 5 bishops (2000). Divine services are performed in Albanian and ancient Greek.

In the 1990s. fraternal ties between the Albanian Orthodox Church and the Russian Church were restored. In October 1998, Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana and all Albania was on an official visit to Russia. In a conversation with him, His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' called this visit “historic,” for it opened a new stage in the history of fraternal relations between the two Sister Churches. Archbishop Anastassy was also present at the Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.

Greek and Russian Orthodoxy are one religion. There is no difference between them in dogmas and canons, however, there are differences in church practice, rituals, and most importantly - in the attitude of the clergy towards the parishioners.

Everyday life

In Russia, ordinary believers are often haunted by the feeling that clergy are like a separate caste, fenced off from the parishioner by an invisible wall. In Greece, priest and parishioner are much closer to each other.

In everyday life, Greeks have deep respect for the priesthood: they give up their seat on public transport, even if the cleric is young in years, they can ask him for a blessing right on the street, in a store, on a tram. This is not accepted in Russia.

In Greece, the requirements for a clergyman are stricter than in Russia. Thus, the ordination of a person who has entered into premarital relations, has been divorced, or is in a second marriage is excluded.

As in any Mediterranean country, in Greece they sacredly observe siesta - afternoon rest. From 13:00 to 17:00, especially in the hot months, life in cities and villages becomes quiet. This also applies to churches. At this time, not only knocking on doors, but even calling is indecent. Vespers usually begins at five or six in the evening, at which parishioners are always welcome.

Unlike Russia, in Greece the Church has state status and works closely with various public structures. The traditions of church courts, long lost in Russia, are still preserved there.

While in a Greek church, you should remember that there are no candlesticks in front of the icons, and there are no candle stands. Candles are placed in the vestibule, where there is an exhaust hood - this is especially true for ancient temples with frescoes. No one asks for money for a candle; everyone can give the amount they want.

Not only during worship, but also outside the church, we are accustomed to seeing a large cross, often expensively inlaid, on top of the robe of a clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Greece, priests wear crosses only during bishop's services. Abbesses do not wear crosses.

The tradition of the Russian Church provides for the so-called “Nicholas” (established by Nicholas II) pectoral cross to be given to the priest before ordination to the priesthood. In Greece, the very fact of wearing a cross is considered a church reward, so ordinary priests do not wear a pectoral cross.

In the Greek Church, priestly crosses do not differ in appearance, unlike the variants existing in Russia: “Nicholas”, “Pavlovsky”, “with decorations”.

Divine service

Many people are struck by the pomp of worship in Russian churches. In the Greek liturgical rite, on the contrary, everything is democratic and simple. There are also differences in the duration of the liturgy: in Greek worship, the liturgy lasts no more than 1.5 hours, in Russian - sometimes over three hours.

In Greek parish churches, the entire liturgy is celebrated with the “open Royal Doors”, and all secret prayers are said aloud. Immediately after the reading of the Gospel, the exclamation “As if under the power” follows, and the Cherubic Song is immediately sung. In the Russian Church, in this case there follows a special litany (protracted prayer), a litany for the catechumens, and two litanies for the faithful. In the Greek liturgy, the litany is said after the consecration of the Gifts and is reduced to four petitions. Unlike the Russian Church, in the Greek Church, along with the priest, a deacon can stand with the Chalice and give communion to the laity.

There are also differences in attributes. Thus, in the Greek Church, proskomedia (the first part of the liturgy) is celebrated on one large prosphora (liturgical liturgical bread), in the Russian Church - on five. There are not as many candles in Greek temples as in Russian ones. Another difference lies in the throne, which in the Greek Church serves as an altar.

It is important to note that among the Greeks, like the Serbs and Bulgarians, women do not sing in the church choir; in Russia, an exclusively female church choir is not such a rare occurrence.

Procession of the Cross If the Russian Church is distinguished by a more magnificent divine service, then the Greek Church is distinguished by a more solemn procession of the Cross. In Greece, the Procession of the Cross, accompanied by brass bands performing bravura marches, is more like a parade. This is not the case in any other Orthodox Church in the world.

The procession does not go around the temple, as is customary, but, with singing and lit candles, heads along the city streets to the central square of the city, where, in front of a gathering of a huge number of people, the symbolic burning of an effigy of Judas takes place. After this, the height of the holiday begins, deafening with the explosions of countless firecrackers.

Hierarchy

In the Russian Orthodox Church, the metropolitan is superior to the archbishop, but in the Greek tradition the opposite is true. The hierarchical chain from bottom to top looks like this: bishop - metropolitan - archbishop - Patriarch.

In the Greek Church, unlike the Russian Church, there is no degree of ryasophore monasticism. First comes the novitiate, then the so-called small schema, and after it the great schema. In Greece, a monk's stay in a minor schema is a short-term phenomenon. It is considered only a preparation for the adoption of the Great Schema.

In the Russian Church, a schema-monk will never again be able to take upon himself any holy rank, if he was not accepted as such even before being tonsured into the Great Schema. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, the main form of monasticism is the Great Schema, and the ordination of a priest to the rank of hieromonk is simply unthinkable without first being tonsured into the Great Schema.

Headdress

Kamilavka is a traditional headdress in the Greek Orthodox Church in the form of a cylinder widening towards the top. It symbolizes the crown of thorns of Jesus Christ. In the Russian Church, the kamilavka began to be used in the second half of the 17th century, replacing the skufia, but it was never considered popular among the Russian clergy. In 1798, the kamilavka was classified as one of the church awards.

The Greek kamilavka is distinguished by the fact that it has small brims at the top of the cylinder; the Russian headdress does not have them. Balkan kamilavkas (including Serbian and Bulgarian) differ from Russian ones in their smaller height and diameter - the lower edge of the kamilavka is located above the ears.

The Greek kamilavka is always black, while Russian priests can wear red, blue, or purple kamilavkas.

As for the skufia (small black cap), it is practically not used in the Greek and Balkan traditions, while for a monk of the Russian Church it is an everyday headdress. It is interesting that the Old Believers call skufia kamilavka.

The Bible used in the Greek Orthodox Church differs in the composition of its books from the Church Slavonic Bible. The first difference is that the 3rd book of Ezra is not in the Greek Bible. Secondly, along with the three Maccabees books adopted by us, the Greek Bible includes the 4th Book of Maccabees. However, these differences are not perceived by the Churches as theologically significant.

Sacraments

One of the main differences between parishioners of the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches is the frequency of communion and confession. Greeks try to take communion on every Sunday, but they go to confession several times a year. In Russia, parishioners receive communion much less often. But from the Apostolic Rules it follows that “anyone who did not partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ for more than three weeks without a good reason was considered to have fallen away from the Church.”

In the Greek Church, only hieromonks who have received a blessing for this have the right to confess, and only those who come from the monastery. In the Russian Church the rules are not so strict.

Many Russians who come to Greece, entering a church, are surprised that there are no queues for confession so familiar to us, there are no priests rushing to cover everyone with stoles. It may seem that confession does not exist here at all. This is wrong. It’s just that in Greek churches, everyone who wants to confess comes at the time appointed for them. There is no fuss or crowd here.

Western influence

The West had a more noticeable influence on the Greek Church than on the Russian Church. The Greek Orthodox Church lives according to the New Julian calendar, which coincides with the Gregorian calendar adopted by the Roman Catholic Church.

There are a number of other details that make the Greek Church closer to the Roman Church than to the Russian Church. These are stasidia (chairs intended, for example, for abbots or singers). In Russia, benches or benches are used instead of stasidia. In Greece, women are allowed to enter church without headscarves and in trousers, but in Russia this is not possible. The Gospel in Greek churches is read facing the parishioners, but in ours it is read facing the altar.

The cleric of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Athens, Alexander Nosevich, confirms that changes occurred in the Greek Orthodox tradition in the 20th century due to the penetration of Western culture: benches appeared inside the temple, women stopped wearing headscarves, and were allowed to enter the temple in trousers. But at the same time, according to the clergyman, in Greece these external deviations did not lead to the loss of the main thing - the internal understanding of the Orthodox faith.